ammonius

I have been in a fairly continuous dialog with a particular friend, who being educated, and otherwise of sound instructional background, still seems to argue like a first year philosophy student. In fact, it seems as though the entirety of his thought is based in, and he has convinced himself that, thought or cognition is the result of, or a function of feeling or intuition. So much does he fall back on this immature position that he does not see the circularity of it; that is, if discursive thought is nothing other than the justification of feeling then this very discursive thought (that thought follows from and is a rationalization of feeling) is itself a result of a certain feeling, or intuition. Presumably these are rooted in a psychology based on desire (though I have not inquired to what he means by desire). Indeed, this particular individual relies on terms like id and ego while at the same time hoping to avoid the psychoanalytical baggage, preferring his own incommunicable definitions of these terms.

The reason that I am writing about this on-going discourse, is that I think that his opinion is not held by a few people, indeed is held by a great many people, who otherwise having been educated collapse back on these foggy notions of feeling, emotion, etc. Now myself being a reader of romantic philosophy, I am no stranger to such positions; however as they are vulgarly expressed in common parlance, these ideas seem entirely frivolous with no depth other than for the speaker to assert his own opinion (which when accused, he no doubt would say that is what everyone else does). Perhaps this particular notion is rooted in a feeling indeed; the feeling of comfort, and the avoidance of the discomfort of questioning. In any case Hegel makes note of a similar conviction of position popular in his time and place:

Sine the man of common sense makes his appeal to feeling, an oracle within his breast, he is finished and done with anyone who does not agree; he only has to explain that he has nothing more to say to anyone who does not find and feel the same in himself. In other words, he tramples underfoot the roots of humanity. For it is the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds. The anti-human, the merely animal, consists in staying within the sphere of feeling, and being only able to communicate at that level. The Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel.

Indeed the individual who I am speaking of often compares his position, his thoughts with that of Dogs. For him the only reason for philosophy isnt communicative, it isnt the formation of community (as Hegel posits here, and Habermas follows suit); philosophy, reason, justification, argumentation only serve the feelings, the ambiguous center of individuality, that he clings to. Hmm end rant today, frustration continues.

-Ammonius